This invention relates to an apparatus for interlacing a continuous multifilament yarn by passing the yarn through a yarn passageway and directing high pressure fluid from orifices onto the yarn.
Various types of apparatus are known for producing interlaced yarns, i.e., yarns possessing continuous multifilaments which have been subjected to an interlacing operation to provide the multifilaments with cohesion in place of twisting or twisting and sizing. An interlaced yarn is formed of continuous multifilaments which have been interlaced, i.e., commingled, entwined or entangled, in a disordered fashion forming "pseudoknots" in order to produce a yarn having an approximately zero overall twist. Such interlacing facilitates such down-stream textile operations as beaming, sizing, weaving, twisting, tufting, knitting, and the like.
Known and conventional yarn interlacers subject the yarn moving under relatively low tension between two yarn guides in an interlacing zone to the action of a high velocity fluid stream, usually a jet of compressed air. In practice, the jet of compressed air is directed in a plane substantially transverse to the advancing direction of the yarn.
Important considerations in the design and fabrication of a yarn interlacer include the versatility of the apparatus for processing different types of yarn and achieving a variety of interlacing objectives In known and conventional yarn interlacers, e.g., those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,262,179; 3,286,321; 3,751,775; 3,828,404; and 3,889,327, the yarn undergoing interlacing is passed through a passageway of fixed and unvarying configuration with the pressurized fluid outlets similarly bearing a fixed and unvarying relationship to the yarn. The fixed geometry of such interlacers necessarily limits their ability to process different types and constructions of yarns and produce a variety of interlacing effects.